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Former Boston Indymedia reporter among ten foreigners detained in China

Submitted by WW4 Report on Tue, 08/26/2008 - 03:19.

Former Boston Indymedia journalist and media activist Bryan Conley, founder of grassroots media videoblog Alive in Baghdad, is one of six US citizens detained in China for covering actions of Students for a Free Tibet during the Olympics. The other five pro-Tibet activists are Jeffrey Rae, Jeff Goldin, Michael Liss, Tom Grant, and James Powderly. On Aug. 21, the Chinese government handed them and four other European activists a 10-day detention sentence.

Activists in Beijing have been organizing actions since the games started, to draw attention on the Tibetan independence movement. The actions have included unfurling banners on public places and providing space for Tibetans to speak out. But China's crackdown on Tibetans and activists alike has been relentless.

For example, on August 19, five activists posted a banner spelling out "Free Tibet" in English and Chinese in bright blue LED "throwie" lights in Beijing’s Olympic Park. All five—Amy Johnson, 33, Sam Corbin, 24, Liza Smith, 31, Jacob Blumenfeld, 26, and Lauren Valle, 21—were arrested.

In an amazing set of coordinated actions, people from Tibet, Canada, Germany, England, and the US, among other countries, have continued to bring Tibet to light during these games. So far most foreigners caught doing activism during the Olympic games were immediately deported from China. The detention sentence of these people is a new development in the government's control tactics.

"The Chinese government is desperate to turn the world's attention away from its abuses in Tibet as the Olympics take place, but the creativity and determination of Tibetans and their supporters has once again ensured that Tibetan voices are heard and seen in Beijing despite the massive security clampdown," said Tenzin Dorjee, deputy director of Students for a Free Tibet.

Tibetans themselves have it much harder. According to a Free Tibet 2008 press release, over one thousand Tibetan monks from the three main monasteries around Lhasa were imprisoned in jails and detention centers one month before the Olympics started. Lhasa itself was under virtual martial law to parade the Olympic torch through streets lined with thousands of Chinese troops.

According to Amnesty International, one of many human rights organizations whose web sites have been censored in China right before the Olympics, "Those who have made connections between human rights and the Olympics have been specifically targeted in the pre-Olympics 'clean up'. The police have also used control, surveillance and arbitrary detention against members of activists' families, in an apparent attempt to apply more pressure."

In an interview with Free Tibet 2008 TV, Eowyn Reike said that the kind of grassroots journalism that her husband, Brian Conley, provides is critical "to provide documentation of struggles that people who would otherwise would not be able to get the word out about their oppression." In 2005, Conley began the Alive in Baghdad project which provides Iraqis with cameras to help them produce a weekly news program distributed via RSS.

Eowyn has not been able to communicate with her husband since his sentencing.

From Boston Indymedia, Aug. 22

See our last post on China and Tibet.

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Beijing pulls bait-and-switch on would-be protesters

Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Tue, 08/26/2008 - 03:30.

This was on the front page of the New York Times Aug. 19, but just in case anyone missed it...

Would-Be Protesters Detained in China
BEIJING — When Gao Chuancai slipped into the capital last week hoping to stage a one-man rally against corruption in his village in northeast China, he knew his chances of success were slim.

During his decade-long crusade, Mr. Gao, a 45-year-old farmer from Heilongjiang Province, had been jailed a dozen times. Two beatings by the police left him with broken bones and shattered his teeth, he said, but did little to temper his drive.

The government’s recent announcement that preapproved protests would be allowed at three sites during the Olympic Games gave him a wisp of hope. Two weeks ago he mailed in his application, and last week he came to Beijing to follow up. During a visit to the Public Security Bureau on Wednesday, the police interviewed him for an hour and then told him to return in five days for his answer. "They'll probably arrest me when I go back," he said afterward.

Mr. Gao did not have to wait very long. A few hours later, he was picked up by the authorities and escorted back to Heilongjiang. On Monday, his son, Gao Jiaqing, in the family's village, Xingyi, said he had not heard from him.

A man who picked up the phone at the Wanggang police station, near Xingyi, acknowledged that Mr. Gao was being detained at a local hotel. "He's under our control now," said the officer, Wang Zhuang.

Mr. Gao's ill-fated odyssey is not unlike the journeys of other would-be demonstrators who responded to the government's notice that protest zones would be set up during the Games. At least three other applicants are in custody. Two, Ji Sizun and Tang Xuecheng, were seized during the interview process at the Public Security Bureau, according to human rights activists.

On Monday, 10 days into the Games, the government had yet to permit a single demonstration in any of the official protest zones. According to a report on Monday by Xinhua, the official news agency, 77 applications have been received since Aug. 1, from 149 people.

All but three applications, however, were withdrawn after the authorities satisfactorily addressed the petitioners' concerns, Xinhua said. Two of the remaining requests were rejected because the applicants failed to provide adequate information, and the last was rejected after the authorities determined it violated laws on demonstrations.

See our last post on the peasants' struggle in China.

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China: not "totalitarian state"?

Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Tue, 08/26/2008 - 03:49.

In an Aug. 17 op-ed, "Malcontents Need Not Apply," Times columnist Nicholas Kristof calls out the bait-and-switch routine—but, reflecting US elite ambivalence about its rival and partner in globalization, paradoxically denies that China is a "totalitarian state." He is called out on this equivocation on the letters page Aug 23 by one of the detained American protesters:

To the Editor:

Re "Malcontents Need Not Apply," by Nicholas D. Kristof (column, Aug. 17):

Imagine my surprise to learn from Mr. Kristof that China is "no longer a totalitarian state."

If he could somehow share this with the many thousands of Tibetan political prisoners, they would be gladdened to hear it.

Also, please pass the word to the undercover policemen who punched and kicked me on Aug. 10 while I stood near Tiananmen Square holding a banner reading "Tibetans Are Dying for Freedom."

Adam Zenko

San Francisco, Aug. 20, 2008

The writer is a member of Students for a Free Tibet.

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Thanks for taking the TIbet issue seriously

Submitted by Amina (not verified) on Tue, 08/26/2008 - 23:51.

I am glad to hear this. It seems the NYC indymedia site ignores the Tibet issue, and if someone says anything about human rights in Tibet the idiot left comes out in full force with stupid irrelevant comments.

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